NBC Sets Oklahoma Tornado Benefit Concert For May 29 
Cannes: Directors’ Fortnight Honors ‘Les … 
‘Fast & Furious 6′ Opens $53.4M Overseas … 
SHOCKER: Tom Cruise Exits ‘Man From … 
A+E Rebuild: BBC’s Jana Bennett To Run Bio And LMN … 
RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘Hannibal’ Hits Low, … 
‘Katie’ Shakeup: Rachel Miskowiec Replaces … 
Hammond On Cannes: French Hero Jerry Lewis On His Return To … 
Cannes: Another Jewelry Heist? $2.6M Necklace Missing After … 
Hammond On Cannes: Leo DiCaprio’s Moon Trip Tops … 
Specialty B.O. Preview: ‘Before Midnight’, … 
2012-2013 Season Network Rankings: CBS Sweeps In Final … 
Full 2012-2013 TV Season Series Rankings 
TOLDJA! Paramount Pocketing $190M From Disney For Marvel … 
‘Good Morning America’ Hits 19-Year Viewership … 
MGM Buys ‘Modern Family’ Producer Ben … 
‘Fashion Police’ Writers Chant On Picket Lines: … 
Universal Makes Seven-Figure Deal For ‘The School For … 
Steven Soderbergh Will Interrupt Retirement To Direct And … 
Cannes: EOne Announces Itself As Player In U.S. … 
Will LIN TV Stations Go Dark On Time Warner Cable? 
The CW brass considered the new Sarah Michelle Gellar drama Ringer a self-starter, and it proved them right in its debut last night. The mystery drama originally developed and piloted for CBS drew 2.74 million viewers, jumping 68% from its lead-in, the fourth-season premiere of 90210 (1.6 million). Ringer also brought in a broader, mostly older audience. In adults 18-49, the show was up from 90210 by 50% (1.2/3 vs. 0.8/3), while in adults 18-34, the advantage was 22% (1.1/3 vs. 0.9/2). Versus CW’s series debuts last fall, Ringer matched the performance of the now-defunct Hellcats and was down from the premiere of Nikita (1.4/4), though Nikita had a much stronger lead-in with The Vampire Diaries. Ringer was the CW’s most-watched program in the time period in three years, since the series premiere of 90210 in September 2009. Given the fact that last night was the CW’s first night of original programming after three months of repeats, the CW will give Ringer more sampling by re-running the premiere on Friday and again next Monday at 9 PM. As for 90210, it was down 18% in total viewers from the series’ debut last fall when it aired in the Monday 8 PM slot. It was on par with the May season finale.
The other series to premiere last night night was NBC’s Parenthood (2.3/6 in 18-49, 6.8 million total viewers), which was down 15% from last season’s debut. In total viewers, the dramedy drew its largest audience since then. Like last September, the Parenthood season opener followed the final performance show of America’s Got Talent (3.6/10, 13.2 million), which was down 8% from last year though it was up 16% from last week to hit an eight-week high in the demo. (Talent is expected to close some of the ratings gap with last year as the reality series is always adjusted up in the finals.) At 8 PM, the season and presumably series finale of It’s Worth What? (1.1/4) was down 8% from last week to match a series low. ABC aired Wipeout (2.0/6), followed by ABC News’ Jackie Kennedy audio tapes special (1.5/4). CBS and Fox aired all repeats. NBC (2.4/7, 8.2 million) won the night in 18-49 while CBS (1.6/5, 8.9 million) surprisingly topped the total viewer competition with no originals.
TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.
Loading ...
Not great numbers for parenthood, it was going against re-runs on the other networks.
Partenthood, a great show that no one watches. Yes, this is America.
Ringer was never going to be a good fit for the CW which has in essence become a teenybopper network of shows mostly meant for teenage girls (90210, Gossip Girl, Supernatural). Do younger teens today even know or care who Gellar is? Doubtful. CBS should’ve kept it or pushed it onto a sister cable network or not picked it up at all.
so true
let’s hope that they don’t change the direction of the show toward juliet!
I wonder if the Dish Network outage — encompassing many states, from what I understand — contributed any to the slump for “Parenthood?” It’s a wonderful show and I wish more people watched.
Wow all the premiers were down from last year… It’s going to be an interesting 2/3 weeks watching all the ratings come in…
To NBC:
Don’t even think of cancelling Parenthood!
I love Parenthood, but NBC has to can it. It is a great show, biut the bottom line is that the audience is small. They have promoted it, kept it in a stable timeslot, and put out a great product. What else can NBC do?
Happy to see Ringer posted solid numbers. Let’s see it continue to build.
I didn’t know Ringer was on until I was flicking through the channels and saw The CW’s hype machine during a commercial break.
I watched, and while it didn’t knock it out the park like the Alias and Lost pilots did, it was good enough for me to want to come back. I think people should really start judging episodes 3 and 4 of a show before writing it off. After it got all of the exposition out the way, the final 20 minutes were good.
Should have been on FOX though. It felt like a FOX show.
Ringer debuted last night? Whoops. I thought everything started next week. Checked the cw website and hulu and it doesn’t look like it’s available online. Mistake!
The new 90210 series debuted in September 2008, unless you meant their second season premiere in 2009. I was partly disappointed in the season 4 premier last night though, but I’m guessing it was because of the new writers trying to fix the hot mess that was seasons 1-3. I haven’t watched Ringer yet, but I’m glad it did well and can’t wait to get a chance to see it.
It’s no surprise Parenthood was down, NBC can’t expect it to do good when they do zero marketing/promoting for it (which they haven’t since its mid-season start in 2010). None of the actors have yet to appear on daytime/late night talk shows, or at least one’s I watch which is about 4-5 (depending on guests). They didn’t even do any ads in magazines or the promos on TV; if they did they must be keeping it to air on just NBC. I hope they start promoting it to potentially bring in ratings, it’s such a great show and deserves better.
Wait, the 90210 ratings were really that low? Too bad. Also, the audio tapes special was a bust. Who saw that coming? …
As far as”Ringer”is concerned,I agree with the person who said that you’ve gotta give a show a real chance by watching 3,4,or 5 episodes. I have always liked Sarah-ever since back in her “buffy” days, & the reason I’m drawn to this show is because of her. I think she’s a good actress & I hope the show does well. It was a smart idea having its’ premiere this week(to get a headstart on everything else premiering next week). I will definitely keep watching this program.Because of the good debut #’s, hopefully the cw gives “Ringer” & Sarah a full season to develop a strong fanbase. I hope her “buffy” fans are giving “ringer” a chance. Best of everything & thank you for posting my comments.
I bet the CW’s sorry they couldn’t get Smallville back for an eleventh season. That show was this network’s ratings-horse.
90210 is going to get slaughtered going up against Glee. They’d be smarter switching it and Ringer around as I believe Ringer would be less impacted by Glee. Not to mention Ringer would clearly be a stronger anchor for 90210 than 90210 is for it.
Parenthood is a great show. These ratings aren’t that bad. Should stay over 6 Million all season without facing The Good Wife anymore.
“Parenthood is a great show. These ratings aren’t that bad. Should stay over 6 Million all season without facing The Good Wife anymore.”
Mike I couldn’t agree more. I tend to watch a lot of mystery, fantasy/sci-fi type shows and trust me, all of them would kill for a 2.3 in the demo. The best most of them ever do on network is a lousy zero point/one point whatever and then die.
Selfish, selfish people.
Ringer is airing again Friday and Monday night for anyone who missed it.
I tried watching Ringer but it started to feel like old territory and I couldn’t see myself investing my time in a melodramatic soap opera filled with convoluted plots. I want my Sarah to be kicking ass not constantly whining and crying. This will be a pass for me and I suspect that after the sampling period is over, the ratings for this show will go own. Parenthood needs more promo spots than what NBC is giving it. You’ve never know that it premiered last night because there was no hype behind the NBC wheel driving it.
I think the CW is smart to start throwing a wider net toward the folks who used to watch Buffy. And Ringer has some great male actors in it, too. I’d watch Ioan Gruffudd floss his teeth for an hour. Hope they give him more to do in future eps. But I agree that 90210 is a terrible lead-in.
Has the new primetime TV season started already? I hadn’t noticed.
NBC can’t expect Parenthood to do good when they do zero marketing/promoting for it. I mean look at how much $$ CBS has put towards The Good Wife. Man oh man. It’s sad because that series is so well done & has more heart than most dramas out there.
Watched Ringer. Thought it was OK but felt like it had a lot of the same beats as The Lying Game on ABC Family and I liked The Lying Game pilot more. Sorry SMG fans!
I agree. The Lying Game has a better pace and I like the fact that the plot is more about twins separated at birth trying to find their mom, rather than just switching lives with each other.
…surprising there was so little promotion for Parenthood considering I know the great team that usually puts those promos together and they’re usually on top of it. Clearly a decision up the ladder from them, but still. What a waste of a continued branding opportunity.
I was so happy to hear Gruffudd using his natural accent on the show. His British is incredibly sexy – I agree, we need more of him! I am dying to see he and SMG get all hot and steamy once he realizes it’s the nice twin and not the bitchy sister… has to happen, right?
to be honest, parenthood is one of my favorite shows on tv and i had no idea it premiered this week until i looked at my tivo. did they do any promotion for the show at all? they have 2 commercials every break for the event (when it was on) but zero for parenthood (which is actually good). makes perfect sense to me.
I have watched 90210 since it first started ever couple that has been paired I get why the writers decided to have them break up Liam belongs w Annie not the boat bitch I refuse to watch your show any longer because that was a great pairing and I can’t watch your show anymore that you’ve decided Liam should care for some baby and girl he met on the boat have fun canceling this show and errors like this are the cause Fix it or don’t say I didn’t warn u there’s going to be a drop in rating because of this I don’t care who she’s sleeping w the boat bitch if u keep her w Liam on the show instead of Annie that will be a big mistake